FROM ATHENS, GREECE

Guerrilla Optimists* for the Social Dream Lab, de Young Museum, San Francisco, California; February 6-March 3, 2013

We’re making an experiment to dream together in Athens. In the name of optimism this month we attempt public somniferous acts…We will plant the suggestion of flying into each others dreams. First we prepare in private and then move our actions to a particularly pivotal public area.

AG: We will sleep and dream in Omonoia square, the heart of Athens, that for the past many years has been transformed into a demonic realm of pain, but also of refuge. A space that allows for time to flow slowly, and for dreams and nightmares to merge with reality.

JN: I begin with questions: can a collective nurture one another so that in spite of crisis, aggression, and uncertainty we find buoyancy in our dreams? If we can do this for one another, in a (devastated) public space, will the space be affected? Could this further our collective potential?

Fredericka: Participating in collective dreaming I open a space for encounter and experimentation as a ‘flying citizen.’ I see our group attempting to create a type of ‘dreamy borderlessland’ where we can mix, share ourselves and cross into the unconscious (e)scapes preceding language and nationality.

MT: Dreams are put under the microscope in an effort to investigate the ways a collective can create dream interrelation. Group goal; to fly in our dreams. Personal goal; to investigate the sonic environment created from the experiment and the one that will host it.

AC: For someone to dream again is a micro-utopia. To live what she dreamed is a grand utopia that hopefully will materialize. We use the word utopia in the sense of having faith, or else living a romantic life without fearing we might fall from the chariot.

* Guerrilla Optimists are a fluid collection of individuals who engage in ephemeral actions in the city of Athens. For our project on dreams, the collaborators are: Alexandros Georgiou, Jennifer Nelson, Fredericka: the Sunflower with a Whip, Manos Tsatiris, C.Amalia Charikiopoulou